Students get a taste of history

Making apples into cider provides lessons about their heritage.

Making apples into cider provides lessons about their heritage.

October 07, 2006|YaSHEKIA SMALLS Tribune Staff Writer

BUCHANAN -- If Johnny Appleseed had been surveying the Gardner School farm Friday afternoon, he would have praised 60 second-graders for carrying out the first mission of the all-American fruit, no doubt. In the 1700s and 1800s, most apples were grown not for eating but for making hard cider. And today, early-harvest apples supposedly have higher acid and lower sugar content, producing a tangier-tasting drink. The estimated 10 gallons of apple cider squeezed by students Friday weren't "hard" by any means. But with all the scrubbing, pressing and peeling, producing it sure was. First, the Moccasin Elementary School students picked about 20 bushels of alternating red and green apples from Bixby Orchards in Berrien Springs and transported them to Buchanan's school farm on Andrews Road. From there, they unpeeled the secret of how to squeeze the juice many students assume come from a freezer at a Martin's Super Market or Meijer. And they learned the power of the hornet-drawing sweet drink. Jonathan Przybylski turned the screw-like crank of a refurbished Kentucky Buckeye cider press about 20 times as juice leaked into a tub from a wooden hopper. "Now we're getting some juice!" Noah Hempel said. Yards away, students buried their hands in water-filled trash cans filled with apples before placing them in wooden baskets and scrubbing them with brushes. At the peeling station, students stuck their fruit onto apple peelers' drivers and turned a crank to shed the skin. After measuring the peel lengths, Nkalipho Dube produced a whopping 167-inch-long peel. "They learn that you have to work to get things kids normally think you get from the grocery store," said J.D. Cowles, a volunteer whose 7-year-old son Justin helped prepare the apple cider. Students from Stark Elementary spent Thursday out at the farm, while Ottawa Elementary students prepared cider Tuesday, Moccasin Elementary Principal Mark Nixon said. About 25 or 26 gallons of cider were produced this week, he said. "We try to work a lot of science in what they do," Nixon said of the children. "Also, we're trying to give kids a unique experience they're probably not going to get anywhere else, probably only once in a lifetime." Through the mix of science, economics and history, students also get a dose of their local heritage, as the area has always been a fruit-growing area despite a growing number of subdivisions, he said. "We're right here in town," Nixon said. "We own it. We run it, and all our kids get it -- not just the school that can afford a field trip." And the day's highlight for Gabrielle Dunnuck? "We got to learn about this stuff," she said while holding out some corn seeds and soybeans from a hayride. The cider press' gears and paint was restored earlier this summer and fall by a local machinist, Nixon said. "It was getting to the point where it needed some help," Nixon said, "We got it back one day before the apple cider started." The Buchanan school farm is supported using money earned from farmland the district helps sharecrop on Elm Valley Road, Nixon said. The school earns between $3,000 and $6,000 per year depending on how well the crops grow and the price of commodities, Nixon said. A nine-member farm board appointed by the Buchanan Board of Education supervises the farm, he said.Staff writer YaShekia Smalls: yassmalls@sbtinfo.com (269) 687-7001